Three men and seven horses of the Sixth dragoons were killed; seven men and nineteen horses were wounded, and three horses missing.
A combined attack on the French posts having been resolved upon, the Sixth dragoons joined the column under General Count Kinsky, who advanced on the morning of the 17th of May from Cysoing to the La Marque, and forced the passage of the river at Bauvines, in which service the Inniskilling dragoons were engaged; but no decisive results followed the movements of the army on this occasion. On the evening of the same day the regiment joined the Austrians under Archduke Charles, and advanced on the 18th to form a junction with the column under the Duke of York at Roubaix, but was suddenly ordered to take the route to Tournay, where the army was again assembled.
The enemy attacked the position with great fury on the 22nd of May, but was repulsed. The Inniskilling dragoons were formed in column on their camp ground; but the French did not attack that part of the line.
The extraordinary efforts made by the French government to collect an army of overwhelming numbers, were eventually attended with complete success. The Austrians were overthrown and forced to retreat; the Duke of York was obliged to withdraw from his position in front of Tournay, and a series of retrograde movements followed, during which the Inniskilling dragoons performed much severe duty.
After encamping a short period at Rosendael, the regiment withdrew with the army, in the early part of August, beyond Breda. Thirty-five thousand men under the Duke of York confronted a hundred thousand opponents; and when the French had made preparations for enveloping this small body of British troops, His Royal Highness withdrew to another post beyond Bois-le-duc, where the Sixth dragoons encamped in the beginning of September.
Strenuous exertions were made by the allies for the preservation of Holland; but the Dutch, having imbibed the revolutionary principles and doctrines of equality from the French, did not second these efforts with zeal and energy, and the British troops were opposed by such immense masses, that no chance of ultimate success remained. The Duke of York withdrew beyond the Maese in the middle of September; and early in October concentrated his forces about Nimeguen, through which fortress the Inniskilling dragoons marched a few days before the place was besieged by the French, and eventually went into quarters in the villages between Rhenen and Wyck.
At length a severe frost set in, the rivers became frozen, so as to admit of an army passing on the ice, and the advance of the enemy being facilitated thereby, the prospect of being able to defend the passage of the Waal became hopeless, and the regiment was directed to pass the Rhine and occupy cantonments beyond that river.
1795
In the early part of January, 1795, a sudden thaw rendering it probable the army would be enabled to maintain a more forward position and defend the passage of the Waal, the Inniskilling dragoons were ordered to advance; they repassed the Rhine on the ice on the 8th of January, and joined the forces under Major-General Sir David Dundas near Geldermalsen. The frost, however, set in with greater severity than before, the country was converted into a plain, and after some sharp fighting the British troops fell back before the superior numbers of their opponents. The Sixth dragoons withdrew from their forward position; they were joined by the Queen's Bays, and Scots Greys, on the 13th of January; harassing marches over a region of ice and snow followed, and several men and horses perished from the severity of the weather.